


Start over

by Itisariddle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic, first time me writing tomione, tomione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8377810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itisariddle/pseuds/Itisariddle
Summary: He does not get to die





	

**Author's Note:**

> Gift fic for one of the nicest people online @ozzymandius. Thank you so much darling person for being there for me and talking to me I love you.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing JKR does I make no money off of this fanfiction nor do I plan to

I.

He knew there was no death, not for him. There was water and nothing else and he knew how to deal with water. There was imagery, a memory of falling. An empty bed, a missed spell, a scream, but he knew it was not the end. Perhaps, this was a sort of hell he reasoned, he was here with the mudblood after all and yet to him it seemed that God had missed the mark. He continued, he lived, he could see his own breath on the water and he knew he would thrive.

II.

She was under now, his fingers on her throat and the urge to kill so strong he choked on it. He knew how to destroy but it was not all he knew. Her wet hair was in her face, her features distorted by water grotesque almost and lovely at the same time. He did not know how to feel that, lovely. How do you feel that word? Her eyes open and her mouth slack the skin of her throat like sand and paper slipping through his hands. He did not want to destroy but he knew he needed to show her what it means to him that she was here with him and he had no way to show her but destruction. So he does what he does best and speaks...

_Hello Hermione Granger, my name is Tom Riddle._

The words burn on the ceiling of her room, in her eyes and inside, on her throat when she regains consciousness. It was a dream but it was not a dream and she chooses to lie to herself. The air around her smells of water. The words on the ceiling burn. What else? Earth. They had put him into earth, she saw it happen and now she is home. In her Muggle home, with her Muggle parents and her Muggle paintings on the ceiling. It was a dream she lies to herself because she needs it to be a dream so badly she is chocking with it.

III.

She was not like the others. She knew what he was from the start; he could see it in her with eyes that felt like his for the first time in years. This place fed him as much as a womb would. He looked up at the starry sky one hand on her throat the other shielding himself from the light above. There were trees on the bank now. This world was shaping to be beautiful. She wriggled under his hand and tried to rise but he pushed down gently almost lovingly. There was no need for hurt here, he could learn in time could he not? Her hand rose from the water and scratched him so he took her nails one by one and looked at the blood spreading though the water like roses. Now he had given her flowers. Was that not the start of any romance?

IV.

She wakes knowing what she would see and knowing that she did not truly wake. There is a sweet smell of blood that reminds her of flowers. There are stains on her bedsheets. Harry is there and she stands up and walks and laughs and cries and moves. Day, she can distinguish day by the smell of it the sun smells warm and the sky smells bright. She can still hear the water in her years, whispering, whispering.

_Hello Hermione Granger my name is Tom Riddle._

V.

She spoke so he took her tongue.

He did feel ashamed of it, at some point, to some extent. There was no particular need to trap her squeeze her mouth open work himself inside. Slender fingers, darkness, light, water. Blood blooming around him not as a flower but as a pool now. The water whispering to him like parseltongue but sweeter, softer. He knew what he took from her. And she was brave. Another would have called to him, cried out or asked for help she did neither. She spoke truth, the first truth he had the pleasure of hearing in a long time.

‘Bastard!’

The word spoken harshly enough for him to understand that she understood. This was no dream this world of his with oranges growing from trees and ravens circling the air.

And was he not a bastard? In the truest sense of the word? Unwanted and unloved with a spine fit for feeling the springs through the matrass on his bed all the time and feet too long to hide under the covers? Scared and lonely and powerful and sad. The boy who still watched magic destroy his life every night. The boy who knew that he needed to control or be controlled. The boy who chose power. With a mother who could not care less and a father who never wanted him. A bastard. Born out of hate, deceit. A bastard born out of the mixture of purity and disillusionment. He was ever truly a bastard and she had not been afraid to call him so. Her lips moving and gasping for air and her limbs trashing as he applied more pressure to her throat to hold her down. So he took her tongue and yet she should be rewarded. It had been too long since anyone spoke the truth to him.

He lifted her from the water.

VI.

‘Hello Hermione Granger, my name is Tom Riddle’

She whispers the words in her mind because her tongue is stuck to the inside of her cheek and she cannot speak. There are walls here, not white luckily she has not reached the stage of white walls.

She is nauseous all the time. Her throat hurts all the time and there are words in her head repeating words Hello Hermione Granger That she cannot stop, cannot un-think. They roil inside her and although they are not hers they somehow also are and that is the scary part. She knows them to be true, she knows the way their whisper feels against her ears. She knows the way they turn her stomach with the truth in them.

 _My name is Tom Riddle, my name is Tom Riddle, my name is Tom Riddle_.

She can hear nothing but the words inside her head so she says them aloud hoping someone else will hear them too but no one does. She cannot speak and when she does all that comes out are words that feel foreign in her mouth. Words like ‘I do’ and ‘I am fine’.

_Hello_

Inside she is no longer burning and no longer ice cold.

Inside she is not nothing. That would be a relieve. Instead she is a nuance.

_Hermione_

There are people around her that she can see her eyes are still hers and she can touch that is the last blessing touch but how can you touch someone who is so far away?

She cannot understand why she would want to. The world in her head is not real. The smell of oranges makes her want to throw up.

_Granger_

VII.

‘My name is Tom Riddle’ He spoke the words aloud as they sat next to each other on the sandbank of what once was the sea. There was a sun in the sky, burning. He liked the sun. He liked the grass, the open field in front of him flanked by threes wearing oranges like little suns.

He liked the vastness of his new world and the snakes in the grass and the birds in the sky. He liked the day more than he liked the night now. The girl regained her bushy hair. He had dried it himself when he lifted her from the water. There was no need now to choke her but he still kept his fingers lightly around her throat although he knew that she would not go. Her eyes were closed, what he could see of them anyway her hair was blocking most of the view he had of her face. Her hands rested in her lap. He knew she was not asleep anymore her breathing had stopped matching his. He said it again. The words that have lured so many to his side, made them do his bidding in that other place, that other life. His name meant power wherever he was now that was still true. His name would shake worlds awake there was no doubt in his mind of that.

‘What would you have me do?’ he said to amuse himself. The girl rested her head on his shoulder and opened her eyes and watched him. He could see the hatred in her eyes.

So he took her eyes.

VIII.

Darkness everywhere. She knows instinctively that there is a world outside of her world, their world but she can no longer see it. The smell of oranges is overwhelming. She cries, wakes, cries. In the meantime she does things. Stands and makes breakfast and knows and answers and reads but when that starts to hurt she throws the books away from her. She is found in the middle of the room that she no longer sees laying on her back counting bricks in the castle wall. The walls are still, thank the gods, not white. But they soon will be.

Her body is restrained and she is thankful. If it stops moving she can no longer be expected to do things that no longer make any sense to her. She can only see the towers, hear the songs of birds in her head. She would have thought he would prefer ravens. She knows his eyes intimately. When she sleeps she knows his body, her bed becomes it and the sheet become his breath.

She no longer fears, fear would have even been a welcome change to this routine that has become her life. She counts to ten each day to watch it past faster.

At night she screams.

IX.

He knew what she wanted. The wind tossed his hair. He saw the castle in the distance and knew what it was. Sun setting on it rooftops, of course. Of course this would be his way in. The world he created was too detailed now. Too boring. But he loved it, loved as she had taught him too. Now he understood. From watching her he knew what had gone wrong last time. He looked at the castle fondly. He knew he would not get there alone. He simply did not want to be alone this time.

So he took her heart.


End file.
